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Friday, October 8, 2010

On the tea party movement..........

The moaning and groaning of the tea party yokels has meant less than nothing since beginning. To take these folks seriously would have required them to have began their "protest" years before when George Bush was trashing the country. To rail against the inheritors of the lunacies of Bush is both grotesque and disingenuous. Matt Taibbi is often worth reading, his recent article on the t.p. movement notes:

Vast forests have already been sacrificed to the public debate about the Tea Party: what it is, what it means, where it's going. But after lengthy study of the phenomenon, I've concluded that the whole miserable narrative boils down to one stark fact: They're full of shit. All of them................

The average Tea Partier is sincerely against government spending — with the exception of the money spent on them. In fact, their lack of embarrassment when it comes to collecting government largesse is key to understanding what this movement is all about — ...................

After nearly a year of talking with Tea Party members from Nevada to New Jersey, I can count on one hand the key elements I expect to hear in nearly every interview. One: Every single one of them was that exceptional Republican who did protest the spending in the Bush years, and not one of them is the hypocrite who only took to the streets when a black Democratic president launched an emergency stimulus program. ("Not me — I was protesting!" is a common exclamation.) Two: Each and every one of them is the only person in America who has ever read the Constitution or watched Schoolhouse Rock. (Here they have guidance from Armey, who explains that the problem with "people who do not cherish America the way we do" is that "they did not read the Federalist Papers.") Three: They are all furious at the implication that race is a factor in their political views — despite the fact that they blame the financial crisis on poor black homeowners, spend months on end engrossed by reports about how the New Black Panthers want to kill "cracker babies," support politicians who think the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was an overreach of government power, tried to enact South African-style immigration laws in Arizona and obsess over Charlie Rangel, ACORN and Barack Obama's birth certificate. Four: In fact, some of their best friends are black! (Reporters in Kentucky invented a game called "White Male Liberty Patriot Bingo," checking off a box every time a Tea Partier mentions a black friend.) And five: Everyone who disagrees with them is a radical leftist who hates America.

The serious problems faced by the country are nothing that will be cured by the half-baked notions promoted by these people. The oligarchy likes nothing better than to see this sort of circus occupying center stage. The spotlight there keeps it off of the wealthy and the corporate interests that are cheerfully looting the country.

Over at Harpers, Ken Silverstein is signing off as Washington editor, due to his exhaustion and numbness from dealing with DC politics. He notes:

The current GOP is truly a scary party, but if not for that it would be impossible to care about the midterm elections. When you’re reduced to rooting for soulless hacks like the current Senate majority leader—and he’s typical of today’s Democrats—you’ve lost something fundamental at the core of your humanity.

After watching Clinton dither around and not go after the wealthy and now to watch Obama avoid the same necessary steps needed to begin some sort of reversal from the decline........begun when the buffoonery of Reagan was confused with seriousness.....well, who can blame Silverstein for hanging up his spurs.